miércoles, 1 de septiembre de 2010

MICHAEL McCLURE [789]



Michael McClure 


Poeta de la Beat Generation
Michael McClure (nacido el 20 de octubre 1932) es un poeta americano, dramaturgo, compositor y novelista. Después de mudarse a San Francisco, encontró la fama como uno de los cinco poetas (incluyendo Allen Ginsberg ) que leen en el famoso San Francisco Six Gallery lectura en 1955 dictada en términos apenas fictionalized en Jack Kerouac 's The Dharma Bums. Pronto se convirtió en un miembro clave de la Generación Beat y se inmortalizó como "Pat McLear" en Kerouac Big Sur 
  
Bibliografía



Passage (1956)

Para Artaud (1959)
Himnos a San Gerión y otros poemas (1959)
El Nuevo Libro / Un libro de la Tortura (1961)
Dark Brown (1961)
Carne Ciencia Ensayos (1963)
La flor; o Billy the Kid (1964)
El Barba (1965)
Trigo envenenado (1965)
Unto Caesar (1965)
Amor del león del libro (1966)
Freewheelin Frank (Frank Reynolds) (1967)
Los sermones de Jean Harlow y las maldiciones de Billy the Kid (1968)
Salve a Ti Quién Play (1968)
Musculoso de Apple Swift (1968)
Pequeños Odas y Los Raptors (1969)
The Surge (1969)
Star (1970)
El Cub Mad (1970)
El Adepto (1971)
Dibujos animados Gárgola (1971)
Los Mamíferos - incluye La Fiesta, La Flor; o, Billy the Kid y almohada (1972)
El libro de Joanna (1973)
Flor Solsticio (1973)
El acaparamiento de la hadas (1973)
Ángel Raro (1974)
Un Puño-completa (1956-1957) (1974)
Gorf (1974)
Blackberries septiembre (1974)
La última estadounidense de San Valentín: poemas ilustrados para seducir y destruir - Escribir Publishing Bloody antología (2008)
Mysteriosos y otros poemas (2010)
Ghost Tantras (2013) ISBN 9780872866270






LA ROSA ES UN UNIVERSO AMARILLO-VIOLÁCEO DESDOBLÁNDOSE

estrato sobre

estrato de luz

pétalo a pétalo
abriéndose

oscilante y aún así
perfectamente balanceada

como el humo
en espiral

de una mente que se quema

(Traducción: José Luis Bobadilla)



CANCIÓN

TRABAJO CON LA FORMA
del espíritu
moviendo la materia
entre mis manos;
la
moldeo
desde
la matriz interior.
Hasta un cuervo o un zorro
lo entienden.

(Traducción: José Luis Bobadilla)



LA LISTA

—HAY HOMBRES VIEJOS
DURMIENDO EN AUTOS VELOCES,
un halcón en el risco
mojado de neblina,
diez ciervos
en un prado otoñal,
álamos amarillos,
pinos
junto al océano.
Todo esto habla más
cuando nuestra
dureza
se relaja en
un nuevo nacimiento.
El valor
de las cosas
se resquebraja
y deja ver los intestinos.

_____________________________

Oro resplandeciente
temblando en la oscuridad.

(De Antechamber & other poems, 1975)




LO GATUNO 

Me enriquece la música que el gato

hace de noche;

el delicado, fino maullido
mientras recorre el cuarto en busca de amor,
caminando despacio, maullando dulce,
gato gris y grande. No en busca de sexo
sino en busca de amor.
Asustado por ruidos que yo no percibo.
Sudando, perdido de amor
mientras ronda el librero.

(Traducción: Ernesto Cardenal)




LA NUBE

para Stan y Jane

LO QUE CONOZCO ES COMO
UNA NUBE.
Me arrojo dentro
de ella
mientras se hincha
detrás de mí
en oleadas expansivas de información
como un suéter verde
bordado con rosas rojas
flotando
en olas azules
envolviéndose
en el oleaje
de
estrella
a
estrella
reflejadas
mientras rugen motocicletas
y huelo
las pastas de piel
de libros viejos.

DE: Grahhr



EL TRAJE

Sonámbulos... ¡Fantasmas! Voces
como cuerpos que vienen a través

de las nieblas del sueño,

flotamos uno sobre otro –

pies desnudos que no tocan el suelo.
Hablando con la voz de nuestros amantes
QUE NOMBRA LOS OBJETOS DEL AMOR

(Inventando nuevas torturas,
máquinas para llevarnos.
Maravillas lanzadas de lleno a nuestras caras.
Ojos como zafiros u ópalos.
Lejanos como milagros. Escuchando
Jazz en el aire. Estamos pasando –

nuestras formas como capuchinas.)
Congelado, agarrado allí

mis hombros no te sostendrán.

LOS ACTOS HEROICOS
no nos liberarán. Libéranos. Amor.
Somos voces. El sueño está con nosotros.

de Hymn to St. Geryon, 1959



LAS LLUVIAS DE FEBRERO

SON LA CRUELDAD EN
CADA JOYA
y cada terrón negro
de carbón
fue una vez una multitud
de vidas.
Dentro de su piel
cada gurú
sostiene a un idiota
pero
ninguno
como
yo
que en secreto ideo
una liberación
llena de ranúnculos
y de hierba de ojos azules
y de los senderos dorados de la primavera
sobre la colina
y el aire que está lleno
del olor de la rosa
y del eneldo.

de Antechamber, 1978









AN ANTHOLOGY 

OF POEMS  BY MICHAEL McCLURE
SELECTED BY THE AUTHOR


This anthology was selected for presentation here in conjunction with the gathering of critical responses to Michael McClure's poetry edited by John Jacob. The base for Jacob's gathering includes essays from a Symposium on McClure, guest edited by Jacob for Karl Young's Margins symposium series in 1975. Essays written since then, including some written specifically for this gathering should give readers multiple views and a well-rounded presentation. The present anthology includes poems from all of McClure's books of poetry, and a passage from his play, The Beard. The poetry section also includes a large group of poems from Ghost Tantras, and some of McClure's essays will appear in conjunction with these poems and the essays on his work.




from Hymn to St. Geryon, 1959

FOR THE DEATH OF 100 WHALES

In April, 1954, TIME magazine described seventy-nine bored American G.I.s stationed at a NATO base in Iceland murdering a pod of one hundred killer whales. In a single morning the soldiers, armed with rifles, machine guns, and boats, rounded up and then shot the whales to death.
I read this poem at my first reading, in 1955.

Hung midsea 
Like a boat mid-air 
The liners boiled their pastures: 
The liners of flesh, 
The Arctic steamers
Brains the size of a teacup 
Mouths the size of a door



The sleek wolves 

Mowers and reapers of sea kine. 
THE GIANT TADPOLES 
(Meat their algae) 
Lept 
Like sheep or children. 
Shot from the sea's bore.



Turned and twisted 

(Goya!!) 
Flung blood and sperm. 
Incense. 
Gnashed at their tails and brothers 
Cursed Christ of mammals, 
Snapped at the sun, 
Ran for the Sea's floor.



Goya! Goya! 

Oh Lawrence 
No angels dance those bridges. 
OH GUN! OH BOW! 
There are no churches in the waves, 
No holiness, 
No passages or crossings 
From the beasts' wet shore.



THE ROBE




Sleepwalkers . . . Ghosts! Voices 

like bodies coming through the mists of sleep, 
we float about each other --



bare feet not touching the floor. 

Talking in our lovers' voice 
NAMING THE OBJECTS OF LOVE



(Inventing new tortures, 

machines to carry us. 
Wonders full blown in our faces. 
Eyes like sapphires or opals. 
Aloof as miracles. Hearing 
jazz in the air. We are passing --



our shapes like nasturtiums.) 

Frozen, caught held there



my shoulders won't hold you.




HEROIC ACTS 

won't free us. Free us. Love. 
We are voices. Sleep is with us.





PEYOTE POEM, PART I

     Clear -- the senses bright -- sitting in the black chair -- Rocker -- 
               the white walls reflecting the color of clouds 
                    moving over the sun. Intimacies! The rooms 
     not important -- but like divisions of all space 
               of all hideousness and beauty. I hear 
                     the music of myself and write it down 
           for no one to read. I pass fantasies as they 
                sing to me with Circe-Voices. I visit 
      among the peoples of myself and know all 
                                I need to know. 
     I KNOW EVERYTHING! I PASS INTO THE ROOM



           there is a golden bed radiating all light 

     the air is full of silver hangings and sheathes 
                               I smile to myself. I know 
             all there is to know. I see all there 
                is to feel. I am friendly with the ache 
                          in my belly. The answer 
                to love is my voice. There is no time! 
     No answers. The answer to feeling is my feeling.



                The answer to joy is joy without feeling.




                The room is a multicolored cherub 

     of air and bright colors. The pain in my stomach 
           is warm and tender. I am smiling. The pain 
                is many pointed, without anguish. 
           Light changes the room from yellows to violet! 
     The dark brown space behind the door is precious 
           intimate, silent and still. The birthplace 
                of Brahms. I know 
           all that I need to know. There is no hurry. 
     I read the meanings of scratched walls and cracked ceilings. 
           I am separate. I close my eyes in divinity and pain. 
           I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy. 
                I smile at myself in my movements. Walking 
                     I step higher in carefulness. I fill 
           space with myself. I see the secret and distinct 
                patterns of smoke from my mouth 
           I am without care part of all. Distinct. 
     I am separate from gloom and beauty. I see all.



     _______________________________________




                          (SPACIOUSNESS




     And grim intensity -- close within myself. No longer 

                                    a cloud 
           but flesh real as rock. Like Herakles 
                          of primordial substance and vitality. 
           And not even afraid of the thing shorn of glamour 
                          but accepting. 
     The beautiful things are not of ourselves 
                but I watch them. Among them.



     __________________________________________




                          And the Indian thing. It is true! 

           Here in my apartment I think tribal thoughts.)



     ___________________________________________




                          STOMACH!!! 

     There is no time. I am visited by a man 
                who is the god of foxes 
           there is dirt under the nails of his paw 
                          fresh from his den. 
           We smile at one another in recognition.



           I am free from time. I accept it without triumph




                          -- a fact.




           Closing my eyes there are flashes of light.




     My eyes won't focus but leap. I see that I have three feet. 

                I see seven places at once! 
           The floor slants -- the room slopes 
                          things melt 
             into each other. Flashes 
                of light 
           and meldings. I wait 
     seeing the physical thing pass. 
                I am on a mesa of time and space. 
                          ! STOM-ACHE! 
                Writing the music of life 
                     in words. 
                Hearing the round sounds of the guitar 
                     as colors. 
                Feeling the touch of flesh. 
                Seeing the loose chaos of words 
                on the page. 
                     (ultimate grace) 
           (Sweet Yeats and his ball of hashish.)



     _________________________________




           My belly and I are two individuals 

                joined together 
                     in life.



     __________________________________




           THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE 

                we smile with it.



     ___________________________________




           At the window I look into the blue-gray 

                gloom of dreariness. 
     I am warm. Into the dragon of space. 
           I stare into clouds seeing 
                their misty convolutions.



                The whirls of vapor 

     I will small clouds out of existence. 
     They become fish devouring each other. 
     And change like Dante's holy spirits 
     becoming an osprey frozen skyhigh 
                to challenge me.





from Dark Brown (1961)

OH EASE OH BODY STRAIN OH LOVE OH EASE ME NOT! 
WOUND-BORE 
be real, show organs, show blood, OH let me 
be as a flower. Let ugliness arise without care 
grow side by side with beauty. Oh twist 
be real to me. Fly smoke! Meat-real, as nerves 
TENDON 
Ion, FLAME, Muscle, not banners but bulks as 
we are all "deer" 
and move as beasts. Stalking in our forest 
as these are speech words!
Burn them pure as above they rise from attitude are 
stultified. Are shit. Burn 
what arises from habit. Let custom 
die. Smash patterns and forms let spirit 
free to blasting liberty. Smash the 
habit shit above! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

LET PURE BLACK WORDS MOVE FROM THOUGHT BEHIND

*       *       *




((OH BRING OH BLOOD BACK THE COURAGE THE DEEP 

THE NEGATIVE CHALLENGE 
I deny. Love. Deny. Defy oh love. In blackness 
a forest, oh damp earth. Put forth. Decry! Put down 
until a shoot is sent forth matching. The purity 
the image within. Oh crass and easy polemic



say 

!I LOVE ! 
Let me be a torch to myself.)) 
OH HEART-SICK BURN STRIVE Past the drift-ease 
to the depth within making a film of the gene 
over the surface. Say meat hand, the hand black 
in the deed as the strain toward the act. Each strike 
an ugly huge music. Walking walking huge Love.



All a web from the black gene to the black 

edge. 
(((torture destroy tradition seek what gives damned 
pleasure.))) 
Exult in drugs 
draw back to sight, 
VISION 
of purity & liberty, 
MORALITY IS BEAUTY THE BEAST SPIRIT LIVES FOREVER 
!                                                                                                       !





!




I REST







from The New Book/A Book of Torture (1961)

  
FOR JACK KEROUAC: THE CHAMBER
IN LIGHT ROOM IN DARK HELL IN UMBER AND CHROME



I, sit feeling the swell of the cloud made about by movement 

of arm leg and tongue. In reflections of gold 
light. Tints and flashes of gold and amber spearing 
and glinting. Blur glass . . . blue Glass, 
black telephone. Matchflame of violet and flesh 
seen in the clear bright light. It is not night



and night too. In Hell, there are stars outside. 

And long sounds of cars. Brown shadows on walls 
in the light 
of the room. I sit or stand 
wanting the huge reality of touch and love. 
In the turned room. Remember the longago dream 
of stuffed animals ( owl, fox ) in a dark shop. Wanting 
only the purity of clean colors and new shapes 
and feelings. 
I WOULD CRY FOR THEM USELESSLY



I have ten years life to worship youth 

Billy the Kid, Rimbaud, Jean Harlow



*       *       *




IN DARK HELL IN LIGHT ROOM IN UMBER AND CHROME I feel the swell of 

smoke the drain and flow of motion of exhaustion, the long sounds of cars the brown shadows 
on the wall. I sit or stand. Caught in the net of glints from corner table to dull plane 
from knob to floor, angles of flat light, daggers of beams. Staring at love's face. 
The telephone in cataleptic light. Matchflames of blue and red seen in the clear grain. 
I see myself -- ourselves in Hell without radiance. Reflections that we are. 
The long cars make sounds and brown shadows over the wall. 
I am real as you are real whom I speak to. 
I raise my head, see over the edge of my nose. Look up 
and see nothing is changed. There is no flash 
to my eyes. No change to the room. 
Vita Nuova--No! The dead, dead, world. 
The strain of desire is only a heroic gesture. 
An agony to be so in pain without release 
when love is a word or kiss.




*       *       *





LA PLUS BLANCHE




JEAN HARLOW, YOU ARE IN BEAUTY ON DARK EARTH WITH WHITE FEET! MICHAEL 

slaying the dragon is not more wonderful than you. To air 
you give magical sleekness. We shall carry you into Space 
on our shoulders. You triumph over all with warm legs and a 
smile of wistful anxiety that's cover for the honesty 
spoken by your grace! Inner energy presses out to you in warmness - 
you return love. Love returned for admiration! Strangeness 
is returned for you by desire. How. Where 
but in the depth of Jean Harlow is such strangeness 
made into grace? How many women are more beautiful 
in shape and apparition! How few can /have/ 
draw such love to them? For you are the whole creature of love!



Your muscles are love muscles!




Your nerves -- Love nerves!




And your upturned 

comic eyes! 
Sleep dreams of you.




*       *       * 





FOR THELONIUS MONK




ALL IS COOL AND BOUNDLESS AS A ROLLING LAMB OF JAZZ, I SEE 

the shades slipt behind me. Avolekiteshvara! 
I am blessed and protected. I hear the beauty 
of the tossing notes. I am safe! 
I it does not matter Love, Avolekiteshvara, Kwannon, 
love you pale beauty 
see my twisted head and face grow 
thin again. 
PURSUE THE SLIM SHADES IN AND OUT LOST IN IT ALL 
hide you from yourself., choke 
on my love for you, happy 
for an instant. 
( All is fire and I fat myself to be a candle. ) 
( Careful, careful crazy man and burning heart. 
) OH! OH! OH! OH! Tired old fear. OH! OH!









from Little Odes (1969)

ME RAPHAEL
THE POINT OF AGONY IS THE POINT OF AGONY!!! ALL THAT I AM, 
CONVERGES 
IN BLACK RIFFS, IN BLACK RIFFS. I RAISE MY HAND 
to the dark dark woman. i cry stop! 
to the deep repetitions -- and this is the Meat 
of poesy of the secret lost secret of Writing. 
I've said it all in my book of torture and beyond that point 
the black riff returned in the color of dark brown



to strike finally to that same point that 

I dripped in my agony -- to make a visible shield 
of fleshy chivalry and nobility in my sight 
of sleek skin! OH OH it is all beautiful 
I HAVE DEFINED BEAUTY



I RESENT MY AGONY AND I DESPISE MY SUFFERING 

SAVE FOR THEIR BEAUTY 
and that I have become immortal



AND I RAISE MY DARK EYES AND MY BROWS TO SEE THEM 

PAINTED ON THE FOREHEAD OF RAPHAEL



____________________________________________________




damn all!!!




damn all!!!




damn all!!!




I HAVE LEARNED EASILY THE STAR OF GLAMOR 

AND I RETURN TO MANLINESS 
carrying a black machinegun



  

*       *       *




HUMMINGBIRD ODE




THE FAR-DARTER IS DEAD IN MY HAND, THE BEAUTIFUL 

SHABBY COLORS 
and the damp spots where the eyes were. Small form 
that was all spirit, smashed on the plate 
glass window. The green head and ruby 
ruffles. The beautiful shabby colors 
and the damp spots where the eyes were. 
All head and chest and the Eros-spear 
of the beak. Moving like Cupid 
in the fuschias. 
Hummingbird and spike of desire.



The huge chest and head and the beautiful 

shabby colors. Tiny legs 
thrust back in the last stiff agony.



WHAT'S ON YOUR SIDE OF THE VEIL?? 

DO YOU DIP YOUR BEAK 
in the vast black lily 
of space? Does the sweetness 
of the pain go on forever?



IS THERE COURAGE THERE IN THE NIGHT? 

WHERE ARE THE LOVES THAT MAKE THE BLOSSOM 
of your body? Do they still spin 
in the air? Your wives 
and loves? Are you now 
more than this meat? Finally 
A STAR??








from THE BEARD

HARLOW and BILLY THE KID wear small beards of torn tissue paper.
HARLOW'S hair is in her traditional style. She wears a pale blue gown with plumed sleeves.



BILLY THE KID wears shirt, tight pants, and boots.




HARLOW has a purse.




The set contains two chairs and a table covered with furs -- there is an orange light shining on them.




The Beard was acted for the first time on December 18, 1965 at the Actor's Workshop in San Francisco. The play was directed by Marc Estrin. The set was designed by Robert LaVigne and costumes were designed by Louise Foss. The cast was as follows:




Jean Harlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . Billie Dixon 

Billy the Kid . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Bright



The Beard was first published in a presentation edition of 300 copies. The author wishes to extend his special thanks to Billie Dixon, Richard Bright, Marc Estrin, Robert LaVigne, and Marshall Krause of the ACLU -- for all we have gone through together to make a blue velvet eternity.




Introduction

by Norman Mailer



Michael McClure's The Beard is a mysterious piece of work, for while its surface seems simple, repetitive and obscene, there is an action working which is dramatic and comic at once, and the play emits an odd but intense field of attention, almost like a magnetic field, almost as if ghosts from two periods of the American Past were speaking across decades to each other, and yet at the same time are present in our living room undressing themselves or speaking to us of the nature of seduction, the nature of attraction, and particularly, the nature of perverse temper between a man and a woman. Obstinacy face to face with the sly feint and parry all in one, the repetitions serves almost as subway stops on that electric trip a man and a woman make if they move from the mind to the flesh. That mysterious trip, whose mystery often resides in the dilema of whether the action is extraordinarily serious or meaningless. It is with these ambiguities, these effervescences, that The Beard plays, masterfully, be it said, like a juggler.


HARLOW: Before you can pry any secrets from me, you must first find the real me! Which one will you pursue?
THE KID: What makes you think I want to pry secrets from you?



HARLOW: Because I'm so beautiful.




THE KID: So what!




HARLOW: You want to be as beautiful as I am.




THE KID: Oh yeah!




HARLOW: Before you can pry any secrets from me, you must first find the real me! Which one will you pursue?




THE KID: What makes you think I want to pry secrets from you?




HARLOW: Because I'm so beautiful.




THE KID: So what?




HARLOW: You want to be as beautiful as I am.




THE KID: Oh yeah! (Pause. He grabs her arm.) 

                     I'VE GOT YOU!



HARLOW: It's an illusion.




THE KID: (Squeezing her arm and raising it) You mean this meat isn't you?




HARLOW: What do you think?




THE KID: What makes you think you're so beautiful?




HARLOW: Oh, my thighs . . . my voice . . .




THE KID: What about your hair . . .?




HARLOW: What do you think?




THE KID: Your hair came out of a bottle.




HARLOW: You're full of shit! My hair is beautiful and it didn't come out of a bottle -- it's like this.




THE KID: Show me your baby pictures!




HARLOW: You're crazy! Why?




THE KID: To see your hair!




HARLOW: You ARE jealous.




THE KID: You're full of shit!




HARLOW: It's blond -- don't worry! You've got buck teeth!




THE KID: SHUT UP!




HARLOW: You'd like to be beautiful! Maybe you'd even like to be pretty. You wear your hair down to your shoulders. Maybe you'd like to be a chick!




THE KID: (He takes hold of her arm -- rolls it in his fingers) THIS IS NOTHING BUT MEAT! (He sneers)




HARLOW: Before you can pry any secrets from me, you must first find the real me!




THE KID: What makes you think I want to pry secrets from you?




HARLOW: Because I'm so beautiful.




THE KID: So what!




HARLOW: You want to be as beautiful as I am!




THE KID: OH yeah! 

                     THIS IS NOTHING BUT MEAT! (He squeezes her bare arm and rolls it in his fingers.) --Why should I want to be beautiful?



HARLOW: Oh. . . You're a man.




THE KID: Yeah?




HARLOW: You're a man . . . And men want to be beautiful.




THE KID: I'm sick of that word . . . it makes me want to puke! 

                     YOU'RE A BAG OF MEAT!



HARLOW: What word?




THE KID: Beautiful. I'm sick of hearing that word coming from a bag of meat.




HARLOW: Don't touch my arm again!




THE KID: Or?




HARLOW: I'll cut your dumb brain open like a bag of meat! 

                     -- Don't you think I'm . . . lovely . . .



THE KID: You smell like myrrh. Come and sit on my lap. (He pulls her arm)




HARLOW: What if somebody came in and looked!




THE KID: In eternity. There's nobody here!




HARLOW: You said I'm a bag of meat! And you said shit about my hair.




THE KID: Maybe I love you.




HARLOW: You're full of shit. WHO CAN LOVE IN ETERNITY?




THE KID: (With sureness) Sit on my lap.




HARLOW: You're a million miles away, Sweet.




THE KID: Not in eternity! . . . Sit on my lap!




HARLOW: FUCK YOU!





from Rare Angel (1974)

RAVEN'S FEATHER, EAGLE'S CLAW, EVERY 
SONG EVER CHANTED 
by the whale hunter 
is a collector's item 
and wafts like mountain fog 
from node to node before becoming clouds. 
EVERY 
BACKWARD 
LOOK 
puts us in touch with sentiment, 
and hurts less than peering forward, 
for tomorrow is the shadow of today. 
Even the blue jay 
gloats over his stash 
of brass buttons. See the octopus play 
with the exoskeleton 
of his prey.
The statement's convolution 
confounds what is already done.



Bulldozed hillsides.




Scarlet flower bugles on the mountain top 

overlook the graveyard.



Such elegant music when we make it 

(for poets call it music) 
surprises 
US 
in the act 
of what we do.



The hand plays hide and seek 

with the eye, and we grow 
great brains 
in honor of the game. 
Then we dance and the music 
follows at our footsteps 
and we stop to listen 
as it passes by. 
WE 
HEAR 
THE MUSIC 
OF 
our selves!



Call it animal nature -- or name it Civilization.





*       *       *





SPARROW HAWK SKULLCAP, LIGHTNING BOLT 

THAT PASSES 
THROUGH THE HAND. 
WAVES OF CREATURES FLOATING 
AT THE EDGE OF FIRE 
dive into the air and bound 
through space with grace 
we nearly comprehend.



Bodies: brown and black and white all blended. 

Hoofed and leaping.



TURQUOISE.




CHROME! Berries and Packards all exploding, lined 

with fur for force fields.



DESTRUCTION UNROLLED UPON THE PLEISTOCENE 

where we stride in luscious comfort, 
and love our children, 
hug our pets, 
experience 
the alchemy of being.



THE FEW OF US LIKE WAR CHIEFS 

AND LOVE-GOD PRINCES 
STAND ON THE PRECIPICE WITH FOLDED ARMS. 
THIS 
LIFE 
has 
been



nothing 

for 
me 
but 
pleasure.



The worst adversity 

is only a length 
I measure. 
I direct creation of my bed of eider blackness 
and drink the juice of apples 
as I sup on flesh of crabs. 
hold great minds 
that lived before me 
in my hands. 
I KNOW THE MEANING OF THE POWER 
THAT IS CHANNELED FOR ME. AND I 
calmly watch the poisons 
splashed across the land.








from Star (1970)

MAD SONNET 1
THE PLUMES OF LOVE ARE BLACK! THE PLUMES OF LOVE ARE BLACK! 
AND DELICATE! OH! 
and shine like moron-eyed plumes of a peacock 
with violetshine and yellow on shadowy black. 
They SPRAY from the body of the Beloved. 
Vanes shaking in air. 
__________________________________



AND I DO NOT WANT BLACK PLUMES OR AGONY . . . AND I DO 

NOT SURRENDER. And I ask for noble combat 
to give pure Love 
as best I can 
with opened heart. 
Love, 
I have not seen you before and you're 
more beautiful than a plume!



Stately, striding in Space and warm . . . ( Your 

human breasts! ) 
LET ME MAKE YOUR SMILE AND HEARTSHAPED FACE IMMORTAL 
-------------------------------



YOUR GREY EYES ARE WHAT I FINALLY COME TO WITH MY BROWN! 

AND YOUR HIGH CHEEKS, and your hair rough 
for a woman's -- like a lamb. And the walking virtue 
that you are!




*       *       *





LOVE LION




OH FUCKING LOVER ROAR WITH JOY -- I, LION MAN! 

I GROAN, I AM, UPON THE CONE SHAPED BREASTS



& tossing thighs!




--AND SEND MY THOUGHTS INTO A BLACKER UNIVERSE 

OF SUGAR! 
Thy face is a strained sheer Heart twisted 
to fine beauty by thy coming.



it is a million miles from toes to thighs! 

(Our bodies beat like the ultimate movie 
slowed to blurs of two meat clouds becoming 
one -- and the Undershroud is joined 
by kissing mouths.)



OH!




OH!




And I am some simple cub 

with plump muscles, loving immortality!



THE SHEETS ARE WHITE.




THE PILLOW SOFT.




JESUS HOW I HATE THE MIDDLE COURSE!




Thy eyes! Thy eyes!






from Jaguar Skies (1975)

SONG
I'M AN EAGLE IN THE WHIRLPOOL. 
I'm the fox of reason. 
I have had my head bent for truth and treason. 
I'm a star in the sunny moon light. 
I'm the stumbling fool. 
I'm the horse of night 
careening on the cliff of flight. 
Won't you kiss me? 
Won't you hug me? 
Please 
tell me my name. 
I'm the hand of April 
with my fingers made of fame. 
Come kiss me on my elbow. 
Bless 
my 
mind 
good night. 
Sweet old flame. 
Sweet old flame. 
Bless my mind goodnight. 
Come kiss me on my elbow. 
With my fingers made of fame, 
I'm the hand of April. 
Tell me my name. 
Please, 
won't you hug me? 
Won't you kiss me? 
Careening on the cliff of flight. 
I'm the horse of night. 
I'm the stumbling fool. 
I'm a star in the sunny noon light. 
I have had my head bent for truth and treason. 
I'm the fox of reason. 
I'm an eagle in the whirlpool. 

*       *       *



  

¡EL CERRO ES NUESTRO!



THE FLAME IS OURS! 

We are the candle 
that holds itself 
aloft. 
We are the Andes 
among creatures 
and our hands are soft 
and our cotex 
is a beacon 
as are our toes. 
You and I 
are a river of light 
that pours 
and gleams 
in 
the 
blue-black 
snows.



We are perfect 

as the tooth 
of a squirrel!



                   --Lima-Huancayo railroad, Peru




from Antechamber 1978




THE RAINS OF FEBRUARY

THERE'S CRUELTY IN 
EVERY JEWEL 
and each black lump 
of coal 
was once 
a multitude 
of lives. 
Within his skin 
each guru 
holds a fool 
but 
none 
like 
me 
who secretly contrives 
a liberation 
filled with buttercups 
and blue-eyed grass 
and golden tracks of spring 
upon the hill 
and air that's filled 
with scent of rose 
and dill.



*       *       *




SESTINA




WE ARE WHITE FLAMES IN BLACK 

and we are silver candles, 
smiles on roses, 
newborn babes, 
otter consciousness, 
and night shades.



We are ghostly shades 

and the shapes of black 
bonfires that melt through consciousness. 
Perceptions are candles 
and we are babes 
who imagine the thorns of roses.



The petals of roses 

make pink and blue shades 
and scents over babes 
who fear no black 
candles 
in the hugeness of consciousness.



We are the autumn of consciousness 

giving birth to spring roses 
by the silverware next to the candles. 
Not all of the shades 
nor all of the purple and black 
convinces us we are other than babes.



You know we are babes. 

Each thing is our consciousness. 
The caves is black 
but it is filled with roses 
--and though we draw the shades 
we light the candles.



The bright glow is from the candles 

in the hands of babes 
who outline the shades 
of perception in consciousness. 
See there are roses! 
They stand in the black.



Those are candles of consciousness 

that show we are babes and floating roses. 
We are shades of flesh turning on black.





from Fragments of Perseus (1983)

LISTEN LAWRENCE
LISTEN, LAWRENCE, THERE ARE CERTAIN OF US 
INTENSELY COMMITTED 
TO 
real 
A REAL, 
REVOLT! A REVOLT 
that we only begin to 
conceptualize as we 
achieve it! 
THE CONCEPTION 
BEGINS SLOW 
-- as we do it -- as we really do 
it -- as we make the revolution 
with our bodies -- our real BODIES! 
OUR REAL BONES ARE NOT DIVISIBLE 
from the bulks of our 
brother and sister beings! 
We're alarmed by the simultaneous extinction 
and overcrowding of creatures: 
WE 
BELIEVE 
that the universe of discourse 
(of talk and habbit-patterned actions) 
and the universe of politics 
are equivalent! 
THAT POLITICS IS DEAD 
and 
BIOLOGY 
IS HERE! 
We live near the shadow 
AT THE NEAR EDGE OF THE SHADOW 
((TOO NEAR!!)) 
of the extermination 
of the diversity 
of living beings. No need 
to list their names 
(Mountain Gorilla, Grizzly, Dune Tansy) 
for it 
is a too terrible 
elegy to do so!



COMMUNISM, 

CAPITALISM, 
SOCIALISM, 
will do 
NOTHING, 
NOTHING 
to save the surge 
of life -- the ten thousand 
to the ten thousandth, vast, 
Da Vincian molecule of which 
ALL LIFE, 
ALL LIFE 
is a particle



*




LISTEN, BELIEVE                      

                              ME, 
none of us can afford to luxuriate, 
if we care about the presence of life. 
The 
whole scene 
IS ALL ONE DIMENSIONAL! 
MARCUSE was right! 
because he saw there is 
only one, one-dimensional, planet-wide civilization 
and realpolitik.                          
                               Unfortunately 
it is modeled on one of the most 
perfect aspects of our nature: THE DESIRE 
TO GROW, TO WASTE, TO BREED, TO BURN UP, 
TO EAT, TO TOSS DOWN, TO TEAR UP, TO FINGER 
AND TWIST, AND TEASE, AND MAKE ALL 
THINGS TERRIBLE AND DIVINE, 
AND GLORIOUS! And we have 
succeeded TOO WELL,                               
                               TOO WELL! 
We are the most complete successes 
the world has ever known!                     
                                   POLITICS 
is 
part 
and particle 
of this horrific success, success 
which is -- in fact -- an explosion that has 
ALREADY OCCURRED. We have charred 
the surface of the earth leaving behind 
buildings which are cinders from the blasts 
of oceans of petrochemicals! 
Look, books and papers are 
the fossil fuel explosion of trees! 
LISTEN, LAWRENCE, this 
is the same old politics! ANY, ANY, ANY 
POLITICS 
is the POLITICS OF EXTINCTION!



*




IT IS TIME FOR PEOPLE TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET 

ALL RIGHT!                                              
ALL RIGHT! 
                                                             IT IS TIME FOR THEM 
to come out of the closet -- 
OUT OF THE CLOSET OF POLITICS 
and into the light of their flesh and bodies! 
NOW 
is 
THE TIME 
to learn to see 
with the systemless system 
--with the systemless system 
like a Negative Capability -- 
of anarchist-mammal perception! 
THAT'S BIOLOGY! Now is the time 
to see that 
it is our nature to be beautiful 
and the destruction wrought by politics 
is part of our beauty. Now we can learn 
to see why it is our nature to go on with 
this destructive politics. NOW WE CAN SAY: 
LET'S STOP! LET'S STOP 
THIS ENDLESS MURDER BY POLITICS! 
LET 
US 
DO WHAT 
WE CAN TO STOP 
so very much useless pain!



It is our nature to overbreed and kill! 

but our nature has endless dimensions! We 
can choose among them -- we can reject, 
we can reject the flowers of politics!





from Rebel Lions (1989)

MAYBE MAMA LION
for Ray Manzarek



OH 

YEAH 
!           !



No,




it's oh yeah. . . oh yeah . . .; the wound 

papered over, making paper tygers 
--WITH A BANDAID . . . 
BANDAIDS . . . BANDAIDS . . . 
SO 
BAD! 
Out of body in the blackness. 
Solid silver blackness of forty billion years 
--in an agony of Crazy, knowing nothing 
--looking for a self to hold the mind. 
BEEN THERE MANY TIMES. BEEN THERE MANY TIMES. 
The sand underfoot is just a blackness 
to hold the blind. coming back to voices: 
CALI, GOING BACK TO CALI, BACK TO CALI



FORNIA, 

FORNIA, 
NOT TO THE 
FUR 
-- but to the wound!



Many years covered over, still deep 

there; TRIED TO BANDAGE IT 
with long stem roses and white ferns.



((Lying on the beach watching chipmunks, 

watching chipmunks and BUGS 
and 
ODD 
patterns 
ON 
the leaves 
HURT IN 
MY SELF ES 
!



((There's a bloody war outside that's whistling 

through the wound!))



stretching 

out to Someone 
in 
DREAM; 
IT'S NO DREAM, STRETCHING OUT TO MAMA LION 
IN A DREAM 
SO BAD! FEELING SO BAD! ALL MY FRIENDS 
HAVE LEFT ME 
and we're eating rich food, rich food, 
with the sound of silver clinking 
on the finest plates 
--IN CALI, GOING BACK TO CALI-- 
KALI, 
we're eating you 
in a dream. You're a salmon. 
California salmon coming back to rivers 
flowing from a head 
on a cliff where folks look down on 
the top of eagle's wings.



IT'S A GOOD LIFE! 

IT'S A GOOD LIFE! 
IT'S A GOOD LIFE!



(out of body out of mind)




--while the rain forests are coming down




Hear the crashing sound




IT'S DEEP INSIDE




Your life swinging round




your body.




Does Mama Lion love you?




Does Mama Lion love you?




DOES MAMA LION LOVE YOU?




Can the salmon drown?





*       *       *





DISTURBED BY FREEDOM




MY HAND IS A GUN AND EACH FINGER 

IS A BARREL 
and my arm is growing searching reaching 
like a DREAM and I don't know 
what to shoot, surely not the robins who have flown 
ALL 
the way 
BACK 
from the mountains of Sonora over the desert 
where I have driven amazed at the craggy 
strangeness of raw beauty. 
((THAT'S WHAT I AM ABOUT: BEAUTY. 
--BEAUTY AND SENSE)) 
and these robins have alighted here 
in these green meadows where sprinkled water 
turning warm runs over the masses of pink blooms. 
I CANNOT SHOOT THE SOUND OF THE TRAFFIC. 
A hundred bullets 
would not stop that bus and I 
would not hurt the children 
or the adolescents at the moving windows 
with their pink mohawk haircuts 
and their sexual cries 
LIKE HUMAN MACAWS. 
It is another day and another dollar. 
WONDER 
WHERE 
AM 
((ROAMING SO SWEETLY FROM FIELD 
TO FIELD DIS- 
TURBED BY MY FREEDOM!)) 
--AND LOOK AT THE DEEP SCRATCHES THAT MADMEN 
make with their keys on the sleek red 
lacquer of my car. 
I taste coffee in my mouth. 
MY MOUTH IS WHERE I AM LIVING TODAY 
but I am lonely as a skinny 
old white cat with blue eyes 
and irregular jagged spots of gray and black 
showing a tiger pattern. 
I am a tyger, I am an owl. I am some ancient wisdom 
taking its own pulse and listening:                           
                          BANG! 
BANG!, goes my finger. 
BANG! Lover, I wish                      
                    we had bought 
the purplish polish for your 
                                                  toe 
                                                  nails!





from Simple Eyes (1994)

THE FOAM
                IT IS BRAVE TO BE THE FOAM 
                    and sing the foam
          IT IS BRAVE TO BE THE FOAM,



                              not really!




      Inside is no place but an infinitude 

                                                  of places 
                          -- positions 
                                    becoming everything 
                                              in there.



           THIS 

              is 
      THE FOAM



                      LIFE-LIKE STARS, 

                                              they too are the foam. 
     The deer antler fallen on the grass within the yard 
                                                                    is foam 
          as is the dew that mottles it.



           Thousand foot deep clouds of one-celled beings 

           with shells of silicon and waving pseudopods 
             in oceans in another time and place 
                                                                  are foam 
           as are the uplifted peaks of shale they leave behind. 
             The visions of William Blake in future caves of thought 
                  that are meat and plastic-steel are foam, 
                            --as are Whitehead's luminous dreams 
                                                  --all foam



     Matter, antimatter, Forces, particles, clouds of mud, 

           the wind that blows in cypress trees, pools of oil 
                on desert floors.



     THE BOY'S EYES NO LONGER SQUINT, LOOK DOWN




          and there is nothing in his hand 

                nothing in his hand that's everything



            and he stares through squeezed caves 

                of blackness 
                                        at a man's eyes 
                that shape a photograph of him 
                     upon the fields of war and appetite 
     for iridescent foam of nacre-red and green and



                         MORTAR 

                            THUD



                on beaches on a wave-lapped shore




           WHERE     HIS     MOTHER/FATHER     SCREAM     AND 

                SHOUT 
                and throw each other on the floor



                          and




                          HE




                        HAS 

                  ! ARISEN !



                       ebullient 

                       from this exuberance 
      and wears his red Y upon his woolen chest 
                  for it is his 
                --as is the future state



                THIS IS NOT METAPHOR 

                  but fact: 
      the green fur forest just beyond the sleek 
      and glossy plastic edge; shrews in their hunt 
      for crickets, hiding in moon shadows 
      underneath a rusting ford. Blue-black waves 
          beat on hulls of ferries. Light moves 
          from one place, or condition, to another!



      HE'S THERE NOW AND EVERYWHERE 

      ____________________________________



      HE'S THERE NOW AND EVERYWHERE




                as are the covers of detective magazines 

                  with evil scientists who scalpel-out 
                the hearts of large-bosomed virgins 
                  strapped to beds, then implant 
                the pump of chrome that sits upon 
                    the operating table; 
                as is the broken toothpick lying 
                    in the rain; as are the



                            HUGE




                            HUGE




                            HUGE




           PASSION THAT HE FEELS




     (shaking in his boy's legs and cock 

          --And those are the stuff of stars 
     that are the flesh of passions that he spins 
     into this rush of neurons and of popping foam.



     These make immortal perfect shapes of the moments 

     that hold copper-colored leaves or twigs within 
                                                  their hands, 
     with each foot upon a war and each arm 
     and every thought in one.



     AN ANIMAL IS A MIND!




     --A MIND--AND DOES NOT KNOW WHERE IT STOPS!




     --Knows little of bounds or limits or edges.




     --Goes on into all times and directions and dimensions.




     --KNOWING ONLY THROUGH LIMITS THAT CANNOT BE KNOWN!




     --IS A BEING OF SHEER SPIRIT!




     --IS A BEING OF SHEER SPIRIT!




     --IS A BEING OF BOUNDLESS MEAT!




     --IS EVERYTHING IN ONE DOT OF THE CONFLAGRATION!




     IS EVERYTHING IN ONE BARE DOT




     IS EVERYTHING IN ONE DOT OF THE CONFLAGRATION!!




     This is war that he is, and melts in




     AND 

     IT



     IS 

     NOT



     FOAM.




     HE




     IS 

     A



     BE- 

     ING



                         AND IT IS NOT WAR, 

                                 HE IS A MAN 
                                 !                   !



                   HE IS AN ANIMAL BEING 

                                       
                                      MIND



                   HE IS AN ANIMAL BEING 

                                       
                                      MIND




                        through the windows of his eyes 

                              fingers and his eyes















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